The transition within the transition: the Übergang from the Selbstsetzungslehre to the ether proofs in Kant’s Opus postumum

Abstract

Recent literature on Kant’s Opus postumum has typically focused on two parts of the drafts: the ether proofs and the Selbstsetzungslehre. Eckart Förster’s interpretation is representative of this tendency and, moreover, presents the Selbstsetzungslehre as the culmination of Kant’s late project. By contrast, I argue that the drafts of fascicles X/XI, written in between the ether proofs and the Selbstsetzungslehre, are of primary importance for understanding the Opus postumum. Through a close reading of a page from fascicle XI, I show that Kant attempts to resolve problems internal to the Selbstsetzungslehre and the ether proofs by presenting a transition from the former to the latter. I advocate a renewed appreciation of the centrality of fascicles X/XI, insofar as the Opus postumum drafts aspire to a science of transition.

Filling out space—the ether and the dispositions of matter in Kant's Opus postumum

“…Guyer (2005) argues that the ether is too empirical to be transcendentally deduced. Howard (2019), building on Hoppe (1969), argues that the ether proofs and the Selbstsetzungslehre explore both the objective and subjective poles of Kant's attempts at effecting the transition between transcendental philosophy and science, constituting the material and formal side of the notion of force. 7 See Schmid and Vetter (2013).…”